The Fugitive

We went to Les Herolles yesterday, the once a month huge outdoor market about an hour’s drive south. The main quest was to buy some more chickens after the loss of Juliette, and with the large selection on view we soon bought one Light Sussex (now called Bob, after Robertsbridge, a small town in the county where I spent long summer days with cousins, catching lampreys in the brook!), one Medici, now called Betty (because Kath likes the name) and one Cendre, now called smokey -for obvious reasons. The only problem is that they refuse to come out of the chicken house, maybe because Boudie has her snout in the entrance most of the time trying to asses her new playmates. Anyway, on the way home we saw an old chap trying to hitch a lift from a nearby village. Being the kind and thoughtful couple we are, we naturally stopped and offerered our services. He was keen to accept, and we took him to the local town where, he said, the veg was much cheaper and straight from the farm. He also told us that he had some friends in Descartes, the third generation of scrap dealers there. He also mentioned that he had some kind of guardian arrangement day to day. After we dropped him off, Kath knowingly explained that sometimes the local simpletons have care from the state if they have problems in self management. Well, when we got home and emptied the car, there was an envelope on the back seat which our passenger had left behind. Not knowing if it was important we naturally perused the contents and found that our simpleton was in fact due to spend two years in jail, pending appeal, and the letter was to give his date for the next court appearance! So he may not be a simpleton after all; he may be the local criminal mastermind, or the local drugs baron trying to evade capture. Does that make us accessories? He didn’t quite fit the bill as another Strauss Khan, but it is wrong to judge a book by its binding. We will send his letter back to his address (?long abandoned) and await the call of the local gendarmerie!